PRASENJIT MANDAL, J. - (1.) THIS application is at the instance of a student and is filed for issuance of a writ of mandamus commanding the respondents to give benefits of rounding off of the paper VI in Part-III in the written and internal assesses examination separately to the nearest unit number and also award grace marks to the candidate for improvement of classification of result to 50% of marks on average and other consequential reliefs.
(2.) THE short fact necessary for the purpose of this case is that, the writ petitioner passed the B.A. honours in Physical Education examination securing 49.94% of marks on an average basis including pass and honours subjects. The petitioner submitted a representation to award one mark so as to make the total marks 50% so that, he might be eligible to apply to different competitive examinations and so on. The father of the petitioner also sent a representation to the university for making round off of the marks to 50% in the aggregate, but, the prayer was turned down. Under the circumstances, this application has been preferred by the petitioner. Now, the question is whether the petitioner is entitled to get the benefit of making round off in respect of marks awarded in a paper.
(3.) UPON hearing the learned Counsel for the parties and on going through the materials on record, I find that the petitioner completed his B.A. Part-III examination with honours in Physical Education from the respondent university in the year 2008 and he was placed in the 2nd class. His simple prayer is for making the aggregate marks 50% by awarding 0.06 marks so that, he can take the benefit of obtaining 50% marks for appearing in different competitive examinations and for other channels open to the candidates having obtained 50% marks. In order to pray such relief, the petitioner has contended that there is a scope for increasing the marks in respect of paper no. VI i.e. Kinesiology wherein the paper has been sub-divided in two parts, Written having maximum 40 marks and Internal Assess having maximum 10 marks. The petitioner appeared in that paper in 2007 and he was awarded 26.50 out of 40 in the written paper and 5.50 in the Internal Assess part. Mr. M.K. Bhattacharjee, learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner has contended that there is a scope of making round off the marks in respect of the Written as well as the Internal Assess in respect of that paper VI in Kinesiology. He has also contended that the marks 26.50 as obtained in the written paper could be rounded off to 27 and the marks 5.50 obtained in Internal Assess could be rounded off to 6. Thus, the total number may be increased to 33. But, he was awarded 32 marks in the said subject appearing as Annexure P-2 at page no.22. 4. In support of his contention Mr. Bhattacharjee has referred to the decision of State of U.P & Anr. v. Pawan Kumar Tiwari & Ors. reported in (2005) 2 Supreme Court Cases 10 and thus, he has stated that the fraction if one-half or more, held, should be treated as one and if less than one-half it should be ignored. Mr. Bhattacharjee has also relied upon an unreported decision delivered by a learned Single Judge of this Court in the order dated August 2, 2012 passed in W.P. No.12656 (W) of 2012, wherein it has been held that by applying the principle of rounding off uniformly to all candidates who have secured 44.5 marks and above but below 45% marks in aggregate should be rounded off accordingly.;